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Another Massacre In Another Gun Free Zone

Greetings, City Pages Readers. If you’ve been reading what certain gutless Tweeps have been writing – nope. I don’t advocate arming elementary school kids.

I do point out – correctly – that Israel has been arming teachers for decades, to prevent, as it happens, mass school shootings. And it’s worked.

This is, of course, a mindless, senseless tragedy, the kind of thing that makes you re-examine your faith in your fellow human, if you have any. I urge everyone to send your thoughts, prayers or whatever you believe in, as well as a buck or two to whatever relief effort springs up when the time comes, to the families and community.

But let’s be honest, if we can, for a moment; look at just about every mass shooting in the past twenty years. Schools, universities, malls, the Aurora theater, post offices, the entire City of Chicago. What do they have in common? They’re gun free zones, by federal, state or local law.

Initial reports indicate the gunman – who was killed, somehow – was the father of one of the students.

How many more children need to die before we realize “gun free zones” don’t work?

UPDATE: Count up the number of school shootings we’ve seen in the past decade and a half, including two in Minnesota (with 11 dead) – all in “gun free zones”. What was that “definition of insanity” again?

In Israel, in the seventies, there were a number of attacks by terrorist gunmen on Israeli schools and school buses. The Israelis responded…how? By banning guns in schools, just to keep the law-abiding terrorists in line?

No. They allowed (and on field trips, required) teachers to be armed. And it worked. And it’s still working.

74 thoughts on “Another Massacre In Another Gun Free Zone”

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I have already overheard one of my co-workers…”no one needs an assault rifle”. Even though no report that this heinous act was committed with an assault weapon. Of course this person knows not one thing about firearms at all.

My fear that this will be the catalyst to strip Americans of our rights defined under Second Amendment of our Constitution and our ability to defend ourselves.

China has been having an epidemic of attacks on school children by disturbed individuals, including 40 wounded yesterday in Hunan. In a country with a very ruthless central government and few guns the attacks are general knife attacks.

I just heard an update that the shooter’s mother was the teacher of that class and she is among the dead. It appears that he also targeted the students in his mother’s class. The authorities were checking on the shooters father who lives in NJ, as they fear he may have been killed, too. At first glance, this is another instance of a child going off in the worst way against his parents and others. One has to ask the obvious question; were the parents clueless, blind or so indifferent to their child that he killed them? Way too early to tell.

There’s two elements to the INSANITY, one being the shooter, the other being our determination to make the softest of targets the softest of targets. We’re forced to pay for “diversity” staff where we should be paying for security staff (armed and competent in my opinion). We’re sure to be hearing from cat-pee soaked Heather Martens in…..3….2….1

Mitch’s comparison to Israel has some appeal, but its an apples to oranges comparison. Israel is a country at war, where every business or school is a target. It’s the war that justifies the teachers being armed.

The closest that modern America has come to that mentality was the DC sniper shootings, when guns became a lot more prevalent in a hurry. But after the snipers were arrested, there was no lasting desire to keep all those guns around.

I can see the common sense of what Mitch is saying, but the mentality of America is so far removed from where we would need to be that I think we’ll see a balanced federal budget before armed teachers.

Terry, “common sense” is quite subjective…and unfortunately not that common.

However if “common sense gun control” means piling on more laws aimed at the law-abiding and any contention that this would have prevented this cowardly, heinouus act or other violent crimes, I would respectfully disagree.

Two main points to support my argument: 1)drugs such as heroin are banned outright, yet still finds it’s way to it’s users, and 2) Illinois (Chicago) and DC have some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation but also among the highest violent crime rates.

It is not about the gun, never has been, and never will be. It is about man and the evil acts of some men. I’m of the mind that to some degree it’s about the declining morality of many in our society.

We’ll all feel the anguish over the carnage and loss of life (young and old) in this senseless act, I only wish that everyone felt the same anguish over the 1M+ souls lost since Roe v Wade. It could be said that the surgeon’s scalpel is far deadlier than any gun.

How depressing this is. In so many ways.
I wonder how the guy even got in the school? It’s my understanding that nowadays you can’t just walk in to a lot of schools. It sounds like this is a very safe, nice area, so maybe they don’t have security measures in place at their elementary schools.
Jesus, it’s depressing to even read what I just wrote.
Guns are part of the fabric of US life. They just are – and they are all over the place, already. And of course almost none of the people who have them do these kinds of things with them.
What are we going to try to do? Abolish the 2nd Amendment and search every single house, apartment, condo and tent, and try and confiscate all guns? It’s not going to happen, and should not happen – and even if we did, there are millions of guns out there already. And a lot of them can be hidden pretty easily. It’s just the way it is. They’re a fact of life, and they’re here to stay.
I guess I thought most schools were a little harder to get into than this one appeared to be – no word yet if some of the murdered adults were security personnel. I guess schools need to have a security budget, if they don’t already. And yes, those personnel should be armed and well-trained.
Sad.

We could stop gun-realted deaths by confiscating all guns.
We could stop automobile related deaths by confiscating all cars.
We could stop illegal immigrants from having kids by rounding all Hispanics up and deporting them.
None of those things are practical, constitutional or practical.

I’m distressed that the anti 2nd amendment chanting has started before the victims have been taken out of the school. But not surprised.

Adrian says:
“My fear that this will be the catalyst to strip Americans of our rights defined under Second Amendment of our Constitution and our ability to defend ourselves.”

As far I can see, there is a huge market in irrational fear. The governments gonna take our guns lie requires an absolute lack of understanding of the American legislative process together with a startling lack of awareness of the Supreme Court’s actual gun owning decisions.

America was built by gun-toting liberty-loving guys riding Harleys and shooting communists on sight. It’s what made us great, and keeps us free. Otherwise we’d all be bending our (somewhat arthritic) knees to King George and being forced to eat cottage pudding instead of God’s own burgers-n-fries

This is not made up.
Emery commented:
“As far I can see, there is a huge market in irrational fear.”
And then commented:
‘America was built by gun-toting liberty-loving guys riding Harleys and shooting communists on sight. It’s what made us great, and keeps us free. Otherwise we’d all be bending our (somewhat arthritic) knees to King George and being forced to eat cottage pudding instead of God’s own burgers-n-fries’

Liberals have a problem. They forced de-institutionalization of crazy people in the name of personal liberty back in the 80’s, now crazy people make up the overwhelming majority of homeless and criminals. Instead of warehousing nuts in psych wards, we wait for them to commit atrocities then warehouse them in prisons.

Liberals can’t admit their cherished policy is a complete failure because that would mean agreeing to lock up people on much flimsier evidence and worse, prove Conservatives were right all along. So Liberals blame crosshairs or scary-looking weapons to excuse nut-violence just as the old time astronomers invented epicycles in orbits to preserve the fiction the stars really did revolve around the earth.

It won’t work, folks. Sooner or later, people come to realize the insanely convoluted justifications ring hollow alongside the obvious truth. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to face the fact that some people are a danger to themselves and to others so they must be confined. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to start locking up people on suspicion rather than conviction. Yes, there will be false positives. But there will be fewer dead schoolchildren. The fact it’s a horrible trade-off makes it no less necessary.

jpmn, The Supreme Court contributed a great deal to the change of emphasis by deciding, after all these years, that the Second Amendment contains an individual right to arms for self protection. This changes a presumption that state and local governments can ban firearms if they want into a presumption that citizens are entitled to own pistols, subject to reasonable regulations.

Terry, I try to keep my sarcasm concise, as sarcasm usually does not improve with length. Now, what was your point?

When you consider the demoralizing indoctrination kids endure in public schools ( there is no “family”, what parents say doesn’t matter, morals are subject to interpretation) and add the insane messages the leftist culture spew ( babies are “clumps of cells” that may be disposed of at will, masculinity is hate, gender differences are an illusion, God is a Flying Spaghetti Monster, America is evil) it’s no surprise our kids are going insane.

Even if every firearm were somehow disposed of, we will still suffer the effects of a population driven insane.

Swiftee, I agree about the culture thing. Christian beliefs say that Hell exists. That if you kill (murder) someone, including yourself, you will spend enternity in Hell.
Today’s Atheist/secular world removes this belief.

Dennis Prager has an interesting thought. Each success generation removed from the historic traditional Christian values and beliefs, will be worse. If you are an Atheist hippy from the 60s, you still could lead a stable life, as you still have a lot of the personal values inherited from your Christian parents and grandparents.

But your kids will be raised going to church each Sunday and learning about love and values. They will be more likely to make up their own values.

And there kids will have no lingering values of Western Christianism. So anything goes.

JPMN wrote:Emory, I understand what you are saying about the process necessary to ban guns. However, I disagree that it is an irrational fear that much of our Government would like to remove that freedom.
Remember when we all voted for open borders and obamacare?

I tend to side with those folks who point to mental illness as the key factor in these type of incidents. Although the rub is that those who argue against gun control are also against universal healthcare so it’s a no go on that front too.

Emery relies on the supreme court to protect him. It takes five years after the act for the court to rule and even then, its not certain Obama appointees will follow the precedent rather than distinguish if not outright overrule. Japanese internment campus were held a permissible infringement, why not “reasonable restrictions?”

Terry, I try to keep my sarcasm concise, as sarcasm usually does not improve with length. Now, what was your point?
Bigoted opinions are usually based on irrational fears. Your statement ‘‘America was built by gun-toting liberty-loving guys riding Harleys and shooting communists on sight. It’s what made us great, and keeps us free. Otherwise we’d all be bending our (somewhat arthritic) knees to King George and being forced to eat cottage pudding instead of God’s own burgers-n-fries’’. Was bigoted. Any more questions, Emery?

And meth, too Swiftee. Meth is bad so we should ban it and then nobody will have access to it. Crack too.

Remember the good ole days when senseless acts of violence or suicide were blamed on heavy metal? Good times, good times.

Also, it’s been several years since Swiftee (aka “Rediculous Looser”) bitchslapped a moonbat in a back alley. I’d like to see that since I was unable to be present the first time around. Whaddya say Sweftee?

The shooter shot his way into the elementary school. The first two fatalities and the first injury went out from the school office into the hallway when they heard him shoot the door open.

The mother was shot apparently at home before he drove to the school, with her own guns, which she had for protection, and which she took regularly to a local range.

Interesting question – would any of you be able to shoot one of your own kids if they tried to take your guns against your wishes, especially if you thought they might do something like this with them?

Another interesting concept, relating to people who carry, and the belief they have that they could stop mass shootings — Joe Doakes and I had an exchange about this a while back. There HAVE been armed, well trained people with guns in place at mass shootings, including one this past week. There was no problem with darkness, smoke grenades, or people packed together quite as closely as they were in the Aurora theater. He was quite close to the shooter when he drew his weapon, but following the safety rules of when you can and cannot safely shoot, he did not fire. He did see the shooter looking right at his drawn gun, before the shooter killed himself in that mall. The cc gentleman did not shoot because there was too great a risk of hitting others behind the shooter, and was complimented on his decision by law enforcement and others who observed the placement of the shooter and the concealed carrier. All other things being optimum, except the proximity of others, he could not shoot.

There were armed cops in the building at Columbine. There was a legal, trained 22 year old male concealed gun carrier at one of the shootings this week at a mall. There was if I recall correctly armed security at the Red Lake massacre at a school here in Minnesota. A concealed carrier came on the scene as the Tucson shooting by Jared Loughner was in progress.

There has been exactly ZERO instances of a person carrying a gun, civilian or law enforcement or security, that has ever stopped a mass shooting, much less a mass shooting at a school.

Mitch was quoted in the city pages describing a female friend who works in a school, and how she could have stopped this guy, despite his vest and weapons, with a 9 mm.

The problem I have with pro-gun advocates is they do not acknowledge how many shots people fire in a crisis that don’t hit their target, and they have an unrealistic expectation of what they CAN accomplish. They envision themselves as heroes – which is a laudable ideal, it means a willingness to put themselves at greater risk to save others. But it is not a realistic expectation, based on demonstrable facts. There is however evidence that people who have attempted to intervene in these kinds of shootings have themselves been killed or injured, without having stopped anything, in some cases giving up their gun to add to the weapons of the shooter..

What more guns in that school would have done, based on past events, was put one more gun in the hands of the shooter, and add to the body count.

What a number of other countries, not at war, and much like ours have done is to reduce the number of firearms in the hands of citizens, and made acquiring a gun harder to do. THAT has resulted in a reduction of mass shootings in Australia to zero, to the UK to one, reduced firearms deaths of law enforcement, dramatically homicides by firearms, suicides by firearms (and suicides generally, since it is well established in the literature that analyzes suicide patterns that people who commit or try to commit suicide do NOT usually make a substitution of method), accidents with firearms, deaths of children by firearms, and reduces domestic violence / intimidation of partners by firearms.

The solution to this violence is to reduce firearms, not more people armed. There is no plausible evidence that more guns work. If it did, we would have the lowest, not the worst statistics of any comparably developed country. Time to hold your ideology to the standard of real performance, not fantasy.

Yes it is true that the desire to harm someone in anger or insanity or a mix of both is at the root of the violence, but we can’t do that much to change that. We can take away the means to do the violence, the guns. Without a gun they are just an impotent angry person, or crazy person, not mass shooters, murderers, or suicides.

DG, who just can’t seem to get her homework done and also had this to say:

Asserting that prayer, or the absence of it, is the reason for natural phenomena, or for human viciousness is wrong. It is nothing less and nothing more than superstition. No rational person should find it a plausible or credible argument for anything.

but she does have the time to sit up all night drinking and writing the usual failed-logic crap like the above

for an instance of her typical logic failure DG asserts: Without a gun they are just an impotent angry person, or crazy person, not mass shooters, murderers, or suicides.
gosh DG do a google search on Timothy McVeigh and reality will slap you so hard in the face that your head will bounce off the floor.

DG piddled, “We can take away the means to do the violence, the guns.”

I’ve read that there is about 15K murder deaths per year (not all gun related). Also that there are about 17K driving deaths related to alcohol. Therefore we should look to take away alcohol (seems that’s been done before), or maybe just cars, we could all take light rail.

“There has been exactly ZERO instances of a person carrying a gun, civilian or law enforcement or security, that has ever stopped a mass shooting, much less a mass shooting at a school” and “The solution to this violence is to reduce firearms, not more people armed. There is no plausible evidence that more guns work.”

I wouldn’t expect a reasoned answer, Dog Gone. As Scott has demonstrated above, it will be a red herring response followed by hot air, or as Kel points out – his beliefs and a single exception that he apparently thinks should drive policy.

It is obvious that the conversation about where to draw the line of freedom to own or carry firearms is not over. In order for the conversation to go anywhere, however, we must be willing to present and listen to all sides of the gun issue. Unfortunately, that sort of discussion is rare these days. It is rare in the Congress. It is rare in St. Paul. It certainly seems rare in these comments. Rhetoric – the need to win the argument regardless of whether we are right or wrong – seems to rule.

gosh leslie you got the straw man up and walking! I suppose I could, since you are too lazy or too intellectually challenged, list a few dozen mass murders that have taken place in this country that did not rely on the use of firearms. But then you would just rationalize it away as “only a few dozen”. You clearly aren’t here for a reasoned discussion and most certainly DG is not.

leslie, Mcveigh is NOT a sole single exception by any means and you would, if honest, recognize that.

and leslie, I didn’t express what the nature of my faith was, don’t be presumptuous!